CPC, Formosa keep fuel prices flat for fifth week

CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) said on Saturday that it would keep domestic gasoline and diesel prices unchanged this week to ease inflationary pressure, even as international crude prices remained high amid military tensions in the Middle East.

Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) also maintained its fuel prices at the same levels this week, information posted on the company’s Web site yesterday showed.

It would be the fifth consecutive week that CPC and Formosa have held their fuel prices steady. Concerns over global oil supply disruptions continued to weigh on market sentiment, pushing Brent crude oil prices, the global benchmark, to their highest level since May at one point on Friday.

Front-month Brent crude oil futures last week gained 4.91 percent to settle at US$109.86 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange in London, while West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures — the US oil benchmark — increased 10.41 percent to US$101.41 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Under CPC’s floating fuel price mechanism, which tracks a weighted average of 70 percent Dubai crude and 30 percent Brent crude, the average international crude oil price fell to US$113.77 per barrel last week from US$114.65 per barrel the previous week, the company said.

However, a weaker New Taiwan dollar, which averaged NT$32.131 against the US dollar last week, compared with NT$31.810 a week earlier, added financial pressure to CPC.

As a result of their decisions to leave fuel prices unchanged, retail gasoline prices this week are to remain at NT$31.2, NT$32.7 and NT$34.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, at CPC and Formosa stations, while prices of premium diesel would stay at NT$29.9 per liter at CPC stations and NT$29.7 per liter at Formosa pumps, the companies said.